


Pinderschlossenheimerwetzel Castle

by tainry



Category: Slayers (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Established Relationship, Ghost Stories, M/M, PWP, Silly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-22
Updated: 2016-02-22
Packaged: 2018-05-22 13:53:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6081813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tainry/pseuds/tainry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gourry picks the camping spot for the night, and around the fire the group decides to tell ghost stories. Afterwards, Zel and Gourry have a little distraction. Lina and Amelia hear strange noises...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pinderschlossenheimerwetzel Castle

**Author's Note:**

> Slayers does sort of lend itself to sillier fics. 
> 
> With apologies to Medieval Baebes for Zel's song ( _Kinderly_ ), and to H.P. Lovecraft for Zel's story.

"There it is," said Gourry. "Pinderschlossenheimerwetzel Castle!"

The others looked down from their vantage atop a cliff and blinked. The name was larger than the castle itself. 

"Well," Amelia pointed out, "it's better than sleeping outside again; I think it's going to be colder tonight even than last night."

Lina shivered; more for effect and in agreement than anything else. They still had a couple of hours left of daylight in which to navigate the steep trail that led down the cliff to the castle on its promontory over the valley far, far below. Zelgadis went first, so he could catch anyone who took an unintended slide, and so, if he tripped himself, he wouldn't crush everyone in his path. 

When they reached the keep, they found it as deserted as Gourry had promised, and quickly set about making themselves as comfortable as they could. Eschewing the drafty great hall, they found a parlor off to one side, with a large fireplace, and several smaller rooms, including the garderobe, branching off conveniently. With a merry fire blazing, their sleeping rooms picked, and a warm meal in their bellies, the four companions settled down for a little camaraderie before turning in; none of them were quite tired yet. 

Zel produced a beat-up old guitar from somewhere, and began to play. First a few songs they all knew, then more obscure things that Lina and Amelia, at least, hadn't heard before. Zel's playing was quite good, and his voice...well, when he kept to the lower registers, and didn't try to sustain a note for too long, he did fine. Lina and Amelia didn't dare even flinch at his occasional quavers, for fear he'd stop altogether. Gourry watched him raptly, oblivious to anything else. 

After a last few idle strums, Zel started to put the guitar away, but paused at the sudden collective outcry of his companions. Looking down to hide his gratitude, he agreed to one more song. Rather than the expected lullaby, though, he picked up the tempo, Gourry and the others quickly taking it up with clapping hands and tapping feet.

~~Kinderly is now my coming  
Into this werld with teres and cry,  
Litel and povere is min having,  
Britel and sone i falle from hi,  
Scharp and strong is my deying,  
I ne woth wider schal i,  
Foul and stinkande is my rotting,  
On me, Jhesu, you have mercy!~~

He sang it three times round, the words almost making sense, but oddly, and Lina thought it didn't sound like a pleasant song, for all the melody was lovely.

"It's meant to be sung as a round," Zel explained. "In modern language it runs: 'My arrival here is natural/into this world with tears and crying/what I have is not much, and poor at that/frail and all too quickly I have fallen from on high/my death is sharp and severe/I do not know where I am going/foul and stinking, I rot/O Jesus have mercy on me!' Jesus is obviously the name of some deity, but I'm not familiar with that one."

Lina and Amelia squinched up their faces. "That's not a very cheerful song, Zelgadis-san!"

"Yeah, Zel. Ew!"

Moved perhaps by the same spark of mischief that impelled Zel - it was the last moon of autumn, after all - Gourry had a suggestion. "Ne, minna, why don't we all tell a scary ghost story before we go to bed!" Right on cue, thunder rumbled faintly, heard even through the thick stone walls. 

"Hey, great idea!" Lina pulled a bag of unidentified white cylinders out of her cloak and stuck several on a forked stick she salvaged from their kindling. "I'll go first; I know just the tale!"

Amelia wasn't sure this theme was such a good idea, but Lina was undauntable. While roasting her white treats to a golden brown, Lina spun a story of cruel fate, a gallant captain of imperial guards, the lovely sword-dancer who was his love, and the beautiful, brilliant sorceress who saved their spirits from an eternity of torment.

"Ooo!" exclaimed the Seyruun princess, clasping her hands together. "How romantic! The door finally opened and she saved her captain! Ooo!"

Zel and Gourry exchanged a look. It *had* been a romantic story, which was uncharacteristic of Lina, but also very clever, which was typical. They were impressed. Lina reloaded her roasting stick while Gourry took his turn.

Gourry's tale was of the headless, vengeful ghost sort, made to scare six-year-olds around campfires from time immemorial. Lina and Amelia squealed politely at the end, then fell over laughing. Gourry grinned, not minding in the least, glad, in fact, that they'd enjoyed it. 

Then it was Amelia's turn. She thought for a moment, digging in her memory for something out of Seyruun's past, for enough dreadful things had happened in that magical kingdom for a thousand spooky tellings. Her eyes lit as the perfect one came to mind.

"Once upon a time, a mind-healer and his loving wife were settling down with glasses of the finest Seyruun wine, to celebrate the award the healer had gotten for distinguished service to the city..."

As the last sentences of the story echoed through the room, all three listeners sat up in surprise and delight. Even Gourry, having followed the entire sequence raptly, put it together, though he was the last to widen his eyes in sudden comprehension.

"Gods!" Zel exclaimed. "The entire time *he* was dead, too! He was one of them!"

"Exactly!" Lina crowed, snapping her fingers. "And you could tell that whole thing over again, and it would all fit, but everything would be different... Wow, Amelia, that's some story!" Lina wished she'd thought of something like it...a person could make quite a living telling such stories.

Amelia blushed under such praise, then looked shyly at her shamanistic mentor. "It's your turn, Zelgadis-san."

Zel started to lean back, putting a hand up to decline. But Gourry's waiting, encouraging grin got to him. "All right, then." He thought for a moment, then looked up at them with the fire reflecting eerily in his eyes. In his mind, the pages of the book came into perfect focus. Skimming them, he decided he'd have to edit the story a bit; the form in which he'd read it tended to go on unnecessarily; a wordiness that didn't really contribute to the final effect. 

Lina reloaded her stick yet again, sharing the results this time with the others as Zelgadis began. 

"'I do not know what has become of Harley Warren; though it is true that I have for five years been his closest friend, and a partial sharer of his terrible researches into the unknown,'" Zel said, his voice almost a monotone, yet somehow conveying the sense of a man broken...by terror, for there was a mad gleam in the chimera's eyes now, a suggestion of rending fear in his features, though his voice remained quiet. The contrast slowly began to unnerve his companions.

No, it was not the tale itself, but the way Zel told it; the words, delivered in a normal tone, in the light of day, would have been laughable. Lina and her companions had faced death themselves, had seen hideous things; and yet, thus fueled, their imaginations could produce much worse. And so they did, for the words Zel spoke only hinted, leaving much to the fertile minds of the listeners.

"'...The voice was deep, hollow, gelatinous, remote, unearthly, inhuman, disembodied. It was the end of my experience, and is the end of my story. I heard it, and knew no more. Heard it as I sat petrified in that unknown cemetery in the hollow, amidst the crumbling stones and the falling tombs, the rank vegetation and the miasmal vapors. Heard it well up from the innermost depths of that damnable open sepulchre, as I watched amorphous, necrophagous shadows dance beneath an accursed waning moon. And this is what it said:

"YOU FOOL, WARREN IS DEAD!"

Shocked silence reigned for a moment; Zel had dredged up more than a third of the demon in him to embody that Voice. The echoes of it faded a little too slowly. Lina's hair was standing on end. Amelia, who'd crept closer and closer to her, shivered and hid her paled lips behind bunched fists.

Gourry shuddered...then shook it off, glaring at the chimera. _If I have nightmares from this..._

But Zel smiled at him, and Gourry could read that smile without thinking. _If you have nightmares, I will be there to comfort you...to make you feel...better again._

Lina quickly got her hair under control. "Sheesh, Zel, where'd you dig up that moldy oldie?"

"Y-yeah," Amelia quavered. "Th-that one's so old it's got m-mushrooms growing on it."

Zel chuckled and lounged back on one elbow. Gourry eyed him hungrily. "Suman ne, then, minna. This storytelling isn't my forte, really. I'll try to do better next time."

"In a pig's eye," Lina muttered to herself.

Gourry yawned extravagantly and stood. "Well, I guess it's time for bed, then." Time to get Zel into bed as quickly as possible, anyway. "Oyasumi, minna!"

Leaving the fire to burn itself out - the entire room was stone, so even a log rolling out wouldn't do more than scorch the floor - the four retired to their chosen rooms. Zel and Gourry went to a little nook that abutted the chimney of the fireplace they'd just left. There was another fireplace there, on the opposite wall, so they were assured of being quite nice and toasty all night. Lina and Amelia had chosen a room on the far side of the parlor, larger, more elaborate in architecture, and most importantly, with a window. Amelia thought the view of what had been the gardens romantic. Lina liked having another exit.

Gourry slid home the bolt on the door; the oil he'd put on it earlier had obviously done its work. Zel was standing in the middle of the room, having laid and lit the little fire, looking up at the curious arrangements of joists and groins in the high ceiling. He'd noticed before that the air ventilation system of the castle seemed remarkably complex; almost unnecessarily so for so small a keep. The upper reaches of this room in particular were laced with an astonishing array of apertures, some of which were large enough for a slender person to fit through. Zel was about to Levitate up there for a better look, when strong arms wrapped around him from behind, and gentle lips were pressed to the side of his throat. 

Zel smiled and placed his hands over Gourry's, leaning back into the taller man's embrace. Gourry undid Zel's belts, in no hurry, and stepped away to lay them near Zel's bedroll. Then he offered himself up to the same treatment. 

"Ah." Zel grinned, comprehending the game. Why waste time with strip poker when one could just strip? He removed Gourry's belt, then they took turns, slowly removing piece by piece an item of the other's clothing. Lingering particularly over gloves and boots, whisking off shirts and cloaks and armor, and last of all, when they most needed the release from the constriction, pants slid down over taut thighs, to be stepped out of, one foot at a time, with greater pleasure just a tantalizing lick away, but refrained from. 

Slow and gentle, Gourry thought. The slower the better, for it would give him more time to forget Zel's creepy story before they finally fell into a happily sated sleep. Slow and gentle.

Right.

Zel naked, when he was otherwise always so thoroughly cloaked and concealed, was just too much for Gourry.

Zel stood his ground when Gourry attacked and they writhed upright while their knees could hold them; mouths devouring while hands desperately wandered. Zel finally moaned, and Gourry pushed him up against the closest wall.

Amelia sat up. "Hsst! Lina-san! Did you hear that?"

"Nmgwah?"

"That noise..." There had been a strange sound...no, it couldn't have been a moan, no human throat could make such a sound, Amelia was certain. It had been too...sepulchral. It had echoed weirdly from the ceiling, falling down like mist to reach her ears. And then had come a dull crash, like stone on stone, but as if from another world. Or like someone moving the lid off a sarcophagus.

"Lina-san!"

Lina rolled over and opened one eye. "Amelia. If you keep me up all night because of that story, I will kill Zel. Do you want that to happen?"

"No, Lina-san..."

"Then go to sleep."

"Yes, Lina-san."

Zel had Gourry pinned on the floor, straddling the swordsman's chest with his arms trapped also, the chimera leaned down and took Gourry's cock into his mouth, sucking firmly while his long, slender fingers played up between Gourry's legs. The tall blond writhed, but couldn't escape, his head haloed by golden hair as he tossed it from side to side. Zel's beautiful backside was right there in front of him and he couldn't do anything about it. He gasped, bit his lips, but Zel drew him deeper and he couldn't hold back a cry as he was engulfed in Zel's demon heat.

Lina sat up this time. Amelia's shivering eyes glimmered at her in the last light of the setting moon. The clouds had broken, but only for a moment. Thunder rolled again, closer than it had been earlier; this time they could see the flash of lightning just before. The eerie cry still echoed. Lina couldn't tell if it was coming from the ceiling or behind what she had _thought_ were solid walls. Her first thought was to suspect Zel and Gourry of mischief, but, no, not even either of them could have made such a sound. The pitch was all wrong, the tone distorted beyond recognition as if by fathoms of water...or the moldering soil of the grave.

Lina shook her head. Nonsense. Stupid story, anyway. The clouds closed over the moon. It was very dark. Were those shadows within the shadows? Were they moving? Another scream rent the night; agonized beyond human ken of suffering, ranging up and down a scale no mortal could encompass.

"Lighting!" Lina and Amelia leapt from their blankets and into their boots. "We'll get to the bottom of this!"

"Ooh, Lina-san, I wish you hadn't put it quite that way..."

"Oh, Gourry... Oh, Gods..." Zel was on elbows and knees, head down, tail up. Gourry, in extremis, had flipped him after all, needing that teasing little stony ass. The swordsman grasped Zel's hips firmly, but rubbed his tip down and around between Zel's legs. Nudging the chimera's balls, making circles around his opening, until he couldn't bear it either and they both moaned and gasped as he slid inside. 

"It's coming from down here!" Lina called, heading for what were presumably the dungeons. The echoes and moans seemed loudest there...it was so hard to tell. Downward they ran, through narrow passages and spiral stairways; the underground portion of the castle was much more extensive than one would think, looking at the modest exterior. There were dungeons indeed, but only a few cells and an obvious torture chamber, plus a couple of alcoves for guards. All empty. And now the hideous, keening wails were coming from behind them.

"There was a side passage," Amelia pointed out.

"Right! Back we go..."

It was just as well there wasn't any furniture left in their room; the way Zel and Gourry were crashing around, anything would have been smashed to smithereens. They rolled across the floor, trying to keep their laughter quiet, but not succeeding very well.

Down in the catacombs, Lina and Amelia shivered. The moans had turned to what they thought sounded like laughter - twisted, maniacal, inhuman laughter. The cobwebby fragments of hundreds of years of the interred Pinderschlossenheimerwetzel dead that surrounded them didn't help.

"It only started laughing when we got to the tombs, Lina-san! It has us where it wants us, now!"

"SHUT UP, AMELIA!" Lina's Lighting sphere was taking on a reddish hue. But she was sure, this time, that the horrible sounds were coming from just up ahead...

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

Zel stirred slightly. Gourry nuzzled his mouth and chin; the chimera opened his eyes. "Mmmmm. Morning, Gourry."

Gourry smiled and kissed him. "More like afternoon, but I'm not complaining."

Zel stretched long and lithe, then relaxed again, molding himself against Gourry's body. "What? No Lina pounding on the door for us to hurry up so we can get breakfast?"

Gourry enjoyed the feel of various parts of Zel brushing against his skin. He slipped one hand down Zel's side to stoke the chimera's hip and buttocks. Maybe they had time for a quickie before... "I am hungry, come to think of it." Definitely a quickie. His stomach rumbled audibly as punctuation. "Ne, Zel, cookie?"

Zel snorted, grinning. Leave it to Gourry to insist on such a code-word for it. Well, Zel wasn't so averse himself... They got up, kneeling facing each other, knees somewhat dovetailed. Their mouths met and clung together while their hands went to work on each other; Zel's hands stroking and grasping Gourry, and Gourry doing the same to Zel. The object was to bring the tension up hard and fast, until just before spilling; they'd developed special signals to coordinate, so they wouldn't have to stop kissing until the last moment. Then they suddenly changed positions, heads and tails, spread legs, swollen, dewy tips engulfed by lips as they swallowed each other and collapsed. 

Later, dressed, with a fire going in the parlor again, and a simple but adequate breakfast cooking, the two men looked up to see Lina and Amelia drag themselves from their room.

"Ne, Lina!" Gourry exclaimed. "Daijyoubu ka?"

"Oh, Gourry-san," cried Amelia, dark circles under her eyes. "We hardly slept a wink in this horrible place!"

"Really? Was it too drafty in your room? We were nice and warm all night. Slept like the dead." Zel delivered this speech with perfect calm and utter innocence. Gourry almost choked on his bread.

"No," Amelia began. "There were these-"

Lina clapped a hand over Amelia's mouth. The last thing she needed right now was to be teased for days by those two guys because she and Amelia had gotten all hysterical over a few bumps in the night. "Just forget it, Amelia." _They'd never believe us, anyway._ "But Gourry?"

"Yeah?"

"Next time you have a brilliant idea for a place for us to spend the night?"

"Yeah?"

"DON'T!"


End file.
